


One Week to Say Goodbye

by squirenonny



Series: Voltron: Duality [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9301925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: After King Alfor places Allura in stasis, Coran has one week before Alfor sends Allura and Coran to Arus to await the arrival of a new generation of paladins. One week to think about everything he's going to lose. One week to search for another solution. One week to remember. One week to say goodbye.





	1. Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the larger _Voltron: Duality_ universe. It can more or less be read independent of the rest of the series, but there are a few noticeable changes from canon, as well as a whole bunch of speculation. If you enjoy this fic, I'd encourage you to take a look at the rest of the series, beginning with _Another Word for Never_.

“We can’t give up hope!”

Allura’s voice, shrill with desperation, was almost lost to the howl of lasers against the castle-ship’s shields. Outside, Zarkon’s forces surrounded them. What little had remained of the Voltron Guard had been reduced to slag and atoms. The only people remaining in the once-bustling castle were Allura, Coran, King Alfor, and the paladins.

These four stood back as Allura and her father argued, and Coran couldn’t blame them. He saw it in their eyes: most of them agreed with Allura, that they should take their lions and fight. It showed a little different in each. The red paladin, Keturah, stood tense and trembling with a rage seldom found among Alteans. Rukka, the yellow paladin, was nearly as furious, but her anger had been simmering longer. She, like Zarkon, was a Galra, and she’d taken his betrayal personally.

Sa, in his green armor, was unreadable, and Meri—the newest of the paladins, who’d trained under Allura’s mother, Lealle, and taken up the mantle of blue paladin upon Lealle’s death—looked resolute despite her obvious fear. She was not as jaded as the others, not as used to battle, but Coran knew she would follow Allura into the maw of death itself.

But Alfor was their king, and Alfor had given the order for the paladins to remain in the castle. They might have turned the tide of battle, true, but they might also have been captured, and Alfor was unwilling to risk even a single Lion falling into Zarkon’s hands. They’d seen what he could do with that kind of power.

Coran tried to support Alfor’s decision, even as his heart ached for the lives that had been lost here today. The atmosphere on the bridge was frigid, and not even the klaxon of alarms could break the hush.

Alfor let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Allura,” he said with an air of finality. He left his station at the castle-ship’s controls to stand before his daughter, cupping her cheek in his hand. “If all goes well, I will see you again soon.”

Even from where he stood ten spans away, Coran could feel the sharp, icy current of Quintessence as it passed from father to daughter. Allura’s eyes widened fractionally as she swayed.

“Father…?”

She clung to Alfor with a rapidly weakening grip, but Alfor held her steady, supporting her as her legs gave out. He smiled, and it looked like a farewell.

“I love you,” he whispered. She sagged, and Alfor bowed his head over her. “Sleep well, my daughter.”

Reaching down, Alfor swept Allura up into his arms, cradling her as he had when she was a much smaller child, up too late past her bedtime chasing Coran around the castle—or _being_ chased, as it were. She let out a sigh, as though of resignation, as Alfor turned around.

Coran and the others ranged around the bridge looked on in shock, mouths hanging open in unformed protests. Alfor had never silenced his daughter in such a way, had never been anything but calm and rational in an argument.

They were all realizing, again, how much had changed since Zarkon forsook his ideals.

Alfor’s eyes met Coran’s, more ancient and more weary than Coran had seen since Lealle died.

“You’re planning something,” Coran said. It wasn’t a question; he’d known Alfor for centuries, long enough to recognize that look of resignation. Of pure, drol-headed stubbornness.

Coran wasn’t worried until guilt crept into Alfor’s eyes.

Alfor turned to Keturah. “Get us out of here,” he said, and as soon as she nodded—after a moment of rigid surprise—Alfor turned toward the door, nodding for Coran to join him.

Coran followed, as he always did, and the sound of battle vanished as Keturah opened a wormhole and carried them through.

He wanted to ask why Alfor had put Allura to sleep—a difficult feat, even for Alfor. He and Keturah had trained under the same Pygnarat monk, learning to control their Quintessence in a way most Alteans could not. It had begun as a focusing exercise for Keturah—as hot-headed and prone to suicidal stunts as every red paladin before her—but Alfor had grown fond of Pygnar magic in his own right.

Still, magic like that took a toll.

And why _now_? Why in the middle of battle? Allura was mature enough to accept Alfor’s decisions, even when she disagreed. Alfor could have taken them away from battle without taking her out of commission.

When they stopped at the door of the cryo-replenisher chamber, Coran’s confusion only grew. But he followed Alfor inside and raised a pod at Alfor’s request. The door slid open with a hiss, and Alfor settled Allura within.

“Stasis?” Coran asked, shock stealing the force from his accusation.

Alfor turned to smile at him, mournful and apologetic. “Just until it’s safe once more.”

Coran thought of the war they fought—Zarkon, once the black paladin, wielding his power and influence like a battering ram and breaking down the walls of every safe haven Voltron had labored so long and hard to build. Alfor was rapidly running out of allies as people surrendered before Zarkon’s wrath, or were crushed. The support troops who had followed the Castle of Lions across the universe slowly dwindled, returning to defend their own homes—with Alfor’s blessing, usually, though some of the troops had out-and-out deserted.

They’d made a wise decision, it seemed. Those who had remained were all dead now.

“So… you’re going to pilot the Black Lion, then?” Coran asked, tentatively.

Alfor’s face twisted, and he punched the button to seal Allura and begin the stasis process. “No.”

Coran frowned. “We can’t stop him without Voltron.”

“And his bond with the Black Lion was far too strong to risk it.” Alfor watched Allura’s pod retract into the ground, then ran his hand over his face. “If we could find someone else, someone the Black Lion would accept as her new paladin, _then_ I might risk it. But I will not deliver such a weapon directly into his hands.”

Rather than argue, Coran only grunted. They’d had this discussion many times before. Coran, like Keturah and Sa, thought the Black Lion must have severed her bond with Zarkon the moment he betrayed them—the moment he killed Lealle, certainly. None of the lions would stand beside a pilot who killed his own teammate.

But Alfor insisted the bond remained. Weakened, perhaps, but not so far that Zarkon couldn’t twist it to his own end. In theory.

In practice, they were fighting a losing battle, and they needed every weapon they could get.

“Alright, then,” Coran said bracingly. “If Voltron isn’t part of the plan, then… what _is_ the plan?”

“A feint.” Alfor scratched at his neck, conspicuously avoiding Coran’s gaze. “We’ll make one final run on Zarkon’s fleet, stage our own defeat, make him believe the other lions have been destroyed so that we can secret them away.”

Coran frowned. “To what end?”

Rather than answer, Alfor pressed another button, and a second pod rose from the ground. Alfor turned to Coran, his blue eyes intent. “You and Allura will take the castle, and the Black Lion, and await a new generation of paladins. Once the other four lions have been awakened, and their paladins gathered in the castle, the Black Lion will be freed from her chamber to find her own new paladin.”

“Take the castle—Alfor, you can’t mean--”

Alfor closed his eyes, and it seemed more a death knell than any lasers. “Yes,” Alfor said softly. “It means this is goodbye, my friend.”

* * *

Coran never wanted children.

The realization had been a slow one. When he was a child himself, he’d been far too busy dragging Alfor into trouble to worry about what sort of a family he would have when he was grown. Alfor _was_ his family. The only family he ever needed, or so he thought.

As a young man in love, he’d been even more convinced that a child would only be an unwanted burden. Back then he’d still held onto dreams of marrying Alfor, and he rather thought they would be the worst pair of parents a child could ever have, too wild and mischievous to be trusted with the molding of an impressionable young mind, too distracted by ambitions and duties to give a youngster the attention they deserved.

Then Lealle had come along, and Alfor had fallen—hard. Coran tried to resent her for it, but she had the cunning of a saleswoman, the charm of a diplomat, and a wicked sense of humor that filled a gap in Coran and Alfor’s friendship neither of them had quite known was there.

She was, in short, the perfect complement to Alfor’s growing solemnity and poise, and Coran couldn’t help but love her for it.

He was, however, a little bit wary when Lealle told him she was expecting a child.

“Oh,” Coran said, trying and failing to sound excited. “A child. How… unexpected.”

Lealle laughed, dancing around Alfor with a happy flush that made her deep blue _glaes_ stand out like polished stones on her cheekbones. “Isn’t it?” She squealed a little, looking more like the adolescent Coran had met fifty years ago than the paladin and queen consort she had become.

But then, courtly manners had never been to Lealle’s taste. She could don the mask, but did so only rarely—and then with much complaint.

“You’ll be the third, of course,” Lealle said, coming to such an abrupt halt her short, dark curls snapped at her chin. “Won’t you?”

_The third._

It was an incredible honor, to be asked to act as third to Alfor and Lealle’s child—to theirs, in particular, because the child would one day take command of the Castle of Lions and train a new generation of paladins. To be a third was to be family—to help raise the child, to be a confidante and a playmate and a babysitter and an instructor. To be there for the child, always, and to take them in if—Altea forbid—anything should happen to Alfor and Lealle.

People rarely used the old term— _third parent—_ anymore, but Coran thought it summed up the job quite nicely.

Coran hesitated. He’d never wanted to be a father, but if it was hard to say no to the look of cautious hope in Alfor’s face, then it was downright impossible in the face of Lealle’s wide, honey-brown eyes.

“Alright,” Coran said, because he knew Alfor’s child would be a part of his life one way or another.

And anyway, a year was a long time to prepare.

(It was not, in fact, very much time at all.)

The day arrived far sooner than Coran would have liked, and when he heard the news he abandoned a half-written report on the castle’s stores to sprint up to the infirmary on the eighteenth floor.

He stopped outside the door, heart in his throat, until Alfor poked his head out and pulled Coran into a hug that was equal parts exhaustion and delight. Alfor’s energy swept Coran neatly off his feet and into the room, where Lealle lay holding an impossibly tiny bundle.

“Her name is Allura,” Lealle said. “Come here and hold her.”

Coran protested, but Alfor’s hand on his back was much too compelling, and Lealle wasted no time in arranging his arms and laying the tiny Allura in the crook of his elbow.

At once, Coran quieted. “Oh,” he said, and Allura cracked her eyes—beautiful blue eyes, like her father’s, with wispy silver-white hair to match—to peer up at the source of this new voice. Coran stiffened, expecting tears and a pitiful cry.

But Allura only turned her face into Coran’s chest, gurgling contentedly.

She was, Coran decided, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.


	2. Brothers

Coran occupied a liminal space in the Castle of Lions. His father came from a line of farmers and had inherited a modest plot outside the capital, where the family and a few hired hands grew grains and raised yelmores. His mother’s father, on the other hand, was an architect—a well-known one, at that. Though he came from humble roots, he’d made quite a name for himself, and had been chosen to head the team building the royal castle.

To be honest, Coran didn’t know what all went into building a castle-ship, whether the royal family had only decided halfway through that they wanted it to fly, whether there had been major setbacks along the way, but the project had been going for two hundred years by the time he was born. The outer structure was complete, but the engines and many of the other systems it needed to sustain itself in space were still missing.

For his part, Coran was only marginally involved with the castle. His grandfather brought him along occasionally, and Coran would gawk at the tall, slender towers with their sleek white walls. Once a week he came to deliver yelmore milk to the kitchens.

That was all, at first.

Ironically, it was not Coran-the-architect’s-grandson who caught Alfor’s attention, but Coran-the-yelmore-herder. The young prince didn’t have very much interest in the construction of the castle, which was his mother’s pet project, but he did like to watch the bustle of servants and merchants and guards and petitioners down in the castle’s rear courtyard.

Coran had brought a transport in with the week’s milk, as usual, but when he finished unloading and turned to climb back in the cab, he found a boy his own age leaning through the open door, peering at the dashboard.

Coran opened his mouth to tell the boy off for messing with his transport, but the boy leaned back out of the cab at his approach, tilted his head to one side, and smiled.

“You’re the one who brings the milk, then?”

Prince Alfor.

Coran had never met Alfor, of course. He’d only seen Queen Revalia once, from a distance, but the white hair was something of a give-away, especially as it contrasted with Alfor’s brown skin. He was, surprisingly, not dressed very formally. The clothes were well-made, but he could have passed for a merchant, or maybe even one of the doormen.

(Maybe not even that. There was a smudge of dirt on the knees of his plain slacks, and his coat was slightly rumpled.)

Too stunned to bow or salute or any of the other number of things that might be vaguely appropriate to do when one met a prince, Coran simply said, “You’re the prince!”

Alfor’s grin widened. “So I have been told many times.” He turned back toward the interior of the cab, poking buttons at random. “How does this work, anyway? I’ve never been inside a transport. How come _you_ get to drive one all by yourself? Mother doesn’t trust me with anything this big.”

“Ah…” Coran hesitated. How were you supposed to talk to royalty? Especially when that royalty was royally fussing with your equipment? “ _Maybe_ you shouldn’t be--”

Before Coran could finish the sentence, Alfor found the engine controls, and the transport trundled forward—straight into a wall.

Alfor cringed, and Coran sighed. “Funny thing about transports?” Coran said. “They don’t drive through walls.”

Most royalty, Coran figured, would have been offended at that, but Alfor just laughed, following Coran over to check on the damage. “It’s not bad, is it? I’ll pay for the repairs, of course.”

“No, no.” Coran put the transport in reverse and pulled it back from the wall. Hopping out, he walked back to the front. “See, just a dent.” He knocked on the hull with his knuckles. “This girl’s built to last.”

Alfor breathed a sigh of relief, then stiffened at the sight of several royal guards headed their way. “Sorry again,” he said in a rush. “But I’m not really supposed to be out here right now. Etiquette lessons, you know.” He turned to dash away, but paused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Coran.”

Alfor grinned. “Well, it was very nice to meet you, Coran.”

* * *

One chance encounter became two, and two became a regular thing, and before Coran knew it he was spending nearly every day at the castle as Alfor’s royal companion. (“Sort of like a hired friend,” Alfor said, a little self-consciously.) Coran thought that was ridiculous, especially because he wasn’t getting paid, except in food and clothes—farmer’s smocks not exactly being up to palace standards.

It was fun, though. Even if Coran did have to sit all Alfor’s lessons with him. It was supposed to help Alfor focus, but Coran rather thought he was a detriment in that regard. They usually ended up passing notes the whole time, and had to relearn half the material later.

Coran wouldn’t give it up for the world. The universe, even.

So when, some thirty years later, the castle was ready to set off on its mission to patrol the stars with Voltron, the question of what to do wasn’t really much of a question at all.

“You’ve _what?_ ” Alfor asked, horror plain on his face.

Coran’s enthusiasm dimmed somewhat. He brushed the front of his new military jacket and fiddled with the strap of his bag. “I’ve joined the Voltron Guard,” he said.

“What would you do that for?”

“Well, I couldn’t very well stay behind while you went off to see the universe, now could I?” It was such an obvious thing, Coran couldn’t believe he had to say it. He and Alfor were of age now. Alfor didn’t need a royal companion anymore, especially not out in space, but he wasn’t King yet, and so he couldn’t give Coran a post on the castle-ship.

The Guard was the only way for Coran to come along.

“Oh, Coran...” Alfor sighed, looking at him with sorrow and pity. Coran’s pride withered, and he dropped his gaze. But a moment later Alford stepped forward and clapped Coran heartily on the back. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was better than the horror it concealed. “Very well, then. Welcome aboard.”

* * *

Coran stared at the empty cryo-replenisher chamber Alfor had prepared for him.

“You can’t be serious,” Coran said. He felt young again, and very small, as he had for the duration of his short stint in the Voltron Guard. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t brave. He’d never— _never—_ been the sort of man who knew how to chart his own course in life. All these years, he’d only ever followed Alfor, even as his adviser, even when they argued.

Alfor’s eyes were full of guilt, as though he knew the chasm he’d opened up beneath Coran, but was going to push him in anyway. “It is the only way. With luck, by the time the new paladins emerge, Zarkon will have grown complacent. But they will need you and Allura to guide them.”

“No.”

Alfor blinked. “What?”

Coran swallowed a lump in his throat and shook his head. “No,” he repeated, more forcefully. “I won’t leave you.”

“You must. Allura will need you.”

“And you, Alfor?” Coran demanded. “What will you do—go into hiding?”

They both knew Alfor could never hide while the universe needed his aid. He would sooner die—and if he did, Coran fully intended to be there beside him.

Coran clenched his teeth. “This is suicide.”

“It is the universe’s only chance for peace.”

“ _Dying_?” Coran demanded. “Letting Zarkon have his way?”

Alfor looked away, a concession he rarely made. It told Coran he wasn’t sold on his own plan, which was a good thing. It was a terrible plan. “It’s only temporary,” Alfor said softly. “We cannot defeat him as we are now, and we _cannot_ draw this fight on any longer. I’ve led enough people to their deaths.”

“There _must_ be a way.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

Coran shut his mouth. The truth was, he’d been searching for a way since this war began. They all had. The stronger Zarkon’s army grew, the harder his enemies had searched for a way to end the war. Everything they’d thought up had failed. Voltron _was_ their only hope, but the Black Lion had stubbornly refused to choose a new paladin.

Alfor’s smile seemed the sort that belonged at a funeral: grim, humorless. A sign of sympathy and a thin effort to impart a bit of strength to the survivors.

“You know I’m right.”

Coran knew, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “In that case, why wait? Send Allura off with the castle now and let me stay.”

“And when Allura awakens, my friend?” Alfor asked. “Would you have her face this universe all alone?”

The words hit Coran hard, and he stared at the hatch sealing Allura’s pod under the floor. Would he abandon her to stay with Alfor? _Could_ he?

No. Alfor was right, curse him. Allura needed him, and Coran would never turn his back on her, not even for Alfor.

Swallowing a lump of emotions, Coran turned back to his best and oldest friend. “One week,” he said. “One more week to try to turn things around.”

“And if nothing changes in that time?”

“Then...” Coran closed his eyes. “You get your way. I’ll go with Allura, and you’ll run off to die.” He shook his head, wondering when the universe had become so cruel. “Just give me one more chance to save you.”

Alfor smiled, clapping Coran on the back. “One more chance to do the impossible.”


	3. Uncle

“You’ve gotta be faster than that if you’re gonna be _my_ nanny, Uncle Rannie!”

Allura’s voice rang out through the corridors, drawing more than a few stares. The upper floors of the castle-ship were not exactly crowded, but there was always someone around. Paladins and their families enjoying the quiet interlude between calls for aid, advisors carrying reports from recent missions, servants running errands, officers from the Voltron Guard on their way to meetings.

Coran smiled bashfully at them all as he chased after the princess. She’d come through her toddling years with all the flamboyance of a howling toffler chasing an iridescent zizata, and was now careening toward adolescence.

“Hello, sorry, coming through.” Coran, as he’d discovered when he’d first become Allura’s primary tutor, was a surprisingly good contortionist. He had to be, if he was to keep up with the princess. She could duck between legs and skid on her knees under hoverplatters full of ore samples and refreshments and documents awaiting signatures, but Coran was stuck politely swerving to avoid every curious onlooker in his path.

Allura paused at the next corner, braids whipping around her head as she turned to check Coran’s progress. She grinned and charged pell-mell down the adjoining corridor.

Coran hurled after her and slammed straight into Keturah.

She grunted as they toppled, and Lealle fell back against the wall, laughing uproariously. “By the ancients, Coran! You look like a runaway yupper tripping over her own ears.”

“If by that you mean clumsy, annoying, and better off kept on a leash,” Keturah muttered, tossing Coran off her as she stood. She dusted off the red-trimmed robes she wore and sniffed as Coran flashed her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Paladin Fire.” He ran his fingers through his hair—too short after his last haircut, though he had to admit he liked the way it stood up like a seva lizard’s crest—and glanced down at Allura, now hiding behind her mother’s legs. “Taking refuge with Paladin Water, I see. Naughty little tyke.”

Lealle wore a split skirt over slim leggings, and Allura was all twirled up in the skirttails, beaming up at Coran with those innocent eyes that let her get away with murder.

Well, not this time. Not with the queen here to bear witness to the way he handled the princess. Coran straightened up, crossed his arms, and arched an eyebrow in Allura’s direction. “Ah-ah-ah. You know the rules, your highness. Save the running for the training deck. If you’ve got that much energy to spare, I’ll take you down for a run against the gladiator.”

Allura’s eyes got wide. She hastily disentangled herself from her mother’s skirts and leaped at Coran, hugging him tightly enough about the waist that he barely contained a grunt of pain.

“Oh, yes, let’s!” she cried. “You haven’t taken me to fight the gladiator in _ages_! Can I try level three this time?”

Coran shot a nervous glance at Lealle, expecting a rage at the words _level three gladiator_ , but she was smiling into her hands. Of course. Not having grown up in a castle, she’d probably done more than her share of roughhousing as a youngster. (Keturah, on the other hand, glowered at Coran like she was going to run straight to Alfor and complain that his youngest advisor was putting the princess’s life at risk.)

Clearing his throat, Coran patted Allura on the head. “Maybe level two,” he said, and Allura’s shoulders slumped.

“You _never_ let me try level three,” she huffed. “I’ve already _beaten_ a level two.”

“Once,” Coran said. “And how many times did you defeat the first level before you were allowed to advance?”

The groan she gave in answer made it sound as if she’d spent a hundred years on level one, rather than a mere seven. But she perked up almost at once and darted past Coran to tackle the youth who had appeared in the hallway beyond.

“Zarkon!” Allura shrieked.

The young Galra staggered at the sudden weight dangling from his waist, but his surprise soon softened to a fond smile. “Hello, princess.”

Allura tipped her head back. “You aren’t off to _train_ again, are you?”

Zarkon laughed. “I just finished, actually.”

Zarkon was sixteen standard, which sounded impossibly young after a lifetime among Alteans. It had been sixty years since Coran had left his home planet to travel the stars—sixty years since Alfor and Lealle had married, and very nearly that since Allura had been born.

But Zarkon was young even by his people’s standards, hardly more than a child himself. He’d joined the Voltron Guard only a few seasons ago, after Voltron had saved his people from the Vkullor. He and a few other youths from across the universe who dreamed of becoming paladins trained under Alfor and the current paladins. The training program was not a promise of a lion, but when one of the paladins relinquished their place on Team Voltron, Alfor turned first to those he had trained, testing them each to see if the lion would accept a bond. Two of the five successions since the tradition began had come from this pool--Keturah and Lealle, in fact--and Zarkon was more determined than most to follow in those illustrious footsteps.

“Does that mean you can train with _me_? Uncle Rannie was just about to take me down to the gladiator. I’m on level _three_ now!”

“No, I—I don’t think I ever agreed to that,” Coran said, faltering just a little as Allura turned a pout his way. He rallied and smiled at Zarkon. “Besides, I think this is one cadet who’s ready for a break.”

Stubbornness cut the line of Zarkon’s jaw. “I can take more.”

Coran resisted the urge to laugh. Zarkon would surely take it for an insult. He was a proud one, despite his youth. _Because_ of his youth, perhaps. Tell him he could take a break, and he would consider it a challenge to work harder.

Before Zarkon and Allura could dare each other to take on the gladiator at its highest level, Coran cleared his throat. “Actually, I believe it’s just about time for our weekly eshet game, isn’t it?”

It was Zarkon’s turn to groan. “What _is_ your obsession with that game, Coran?”

“It’s an ancient and noble Altean tradition!”

“And he’s too bloody good at it for anyone else to win,” Lealle muttered. “I should know. Alfor’s been trying to come up with a winning strategy for years.”

Coran grinned, then clapped Zarkon on the back. The boy stumbled and rubbed his shoulder sullenly. “It’ll be good for you! You want to pilot the Black Lion some day, don’t you? You’ve got to have a head for strategy if you’re going to lead Voltron.”

That put the spark back in Zarkon’s eyes. “All right,” he said. “One more game.”

Keturah snorted. “You say that every week.”

“And every week I get better.”

“Of course.” With a sigh, Keturah raised one hand in farewell and headed off the other direction, Lealle sweeping after her. “Let me know if you ever _actually_ manage to beat him. It would be nice to see him brought off his high throne for once.”

Coran smirked at the retreating pair’s backs. “You only say that because _you_ haven’t ever beat me, either.”

Keturah whipped around, red _glaes_ bright on her pale cheeks. She glared hard enough to scald, but said nothing—because there was nothing _to_ say. Keturah wasn’t the red paladin for nothing; she was all flashy tricks and very little of the patience needed for eshet. Not that that stopped her playing, or getting all huffy when she inevitably lost.

“Maybe you should listen to King Alfor!” Coran called. “A bit of meditation might give you the focus you need to last more than two rounds.”

A faint pink blush painted Keturah’s cheeks, darkening as Lealle leaned over to whisper something in her ear. Growling, Keturah pushed Lealle away and stalked off, simmering.

Coran chuckled and turned back to his two young charges. “Tell you what, Zarkon. I’ll go easy on you this week. You can play Allura!”

“Her?” Zarkon’s lips curled. “She’s a child.”

“Ah, but she’s got a sharp mind.”

“You don’t have to if you’re scared, Zarkon,” Allura said, all sweetness and fluttering eyelashes.

Zarkon’s eye twitched. “Fine,” he said. “But only so _you_ don’t have to deal with Coran as an opponent.”

* * *

“We’re not backing down from this fight.” Rukka was on her feet, and she stared around at the others as though expecting resistance. It was quiet in the summit room. It always was, Coran reminded himself. Just because the castle was empty now—empty except for himself, Alfor, and the four paladins, and Allura asleep in her cryopod—didn’t change the silence of _this_ room in any tangible way.

It felt as though it did, though. What once had been a respite from the bustle of the castle where Alfor could go to discuss treaties or officers to plan battles had become the same sort of hollowness that hovered over every empty room these last few days.

Seeing that everyone in the room agreed with her, Rukka faltered. Her ears drooped, and she glanced around, bashful, before sinking back into her seat. Galra didn't blush (or if they did, they didn't show it) but Coran imagined she would have been blushing now, had she been Altean. “We’re just—we can’t stop fighting. We’re _Voltron_. Protecting the universe is what we _do_.”

“We’re _part_ of Voltron.” Sa’s voice was weary, and he didn’t point out Zarkon’s empty chair to be cruel. He was just being realistic, and Altea knew they needed that now. “We can’t stop Zarkon without a black paladin, and we can’t risk exposing the Black Lion where Zarkon might steal her away.” He paused, scratching his neck. “Maybe King Alfor has the right idea.”

This time, Meri was faster to her feet than Rukka. “You can’t _seriously_ be suggesting we all save our own skins and leave our king to _die_.”

Meri was young for a paladin—a decade younger than Allura at a scant one hundred and forty. She was old enough to be considered an adult, but only barely. Under normal circumstances, Coran doubted she’d have been allowed to test for a bond with the Blue Lion, whether or not she’d trained under King Alfor.

But these were not ordinary circumstances, and Meri _had_ been chosen. She’d been chosen just two days after Lealle’s death, as though Blue knew the stakes, and that she didn’t have time to mourn.

Coran did not envy Meri her position—youngest among the paladins, inexperienced in a war for the fate of galaxies, the last line of defense against Zarkon’s army. But she bore the pressure well. Hers was a quiet strength, not the boisterous energy and amiability of Lealle, but something quieter. The soft glow of crystallight next to Lealle's raging wildfire. With time, Meri could have become one of the greats.

She stood now, simmering, her fiery red hair whipping around her shoulders as she turned to glare at everyone in turn. It contrasted starkly with her dark skin, and the violet _glaes_ on her cheekbones seemed flush with emotion. “I will _not_ run away from this fight.”

Sa sniffed, unimpressed, and rubbed irritably at the black markings across his nose. His antenna-like ears quivered with emotion he didn't otherwise display. “I’m not saying I _like_ the idea. But we _must_ consider it. Our alternatives may well lead us to a universe in which Voltron belongs to a tyrant.”

“So we burn our friend, our _liege_ , to save ourselves the guilt of failure.” Keturah barked a laugh. “You always were a coward, Sa.”

Sa’s eyes flashed dangerously. “We will do whatever we must to save as many lives as possible.”

“And standing aside as Zarkon ravages every inhabited system from here to Altea is _not_ the way to do it,” Keturah hissed. Her voice dripped with venom, though it rose hardly above its normal volume. Her days of shouting and charging into battle alone were long behind her, tempered by age and training, and she had become the paladins’ foremost strategist.

Now she stood firmly on Coran’s side in this debate, her and Rukka and Meri, with Sa undecided in the middle. Coran should have been happy, hearing the universe’s finest warriors voice their commitment to seeing the fight through. He should have been happy that he was not the only one stopping Alfor from sacrificing himself as a glorified stall tactic.

Yet as he listened to Keturah’s arguments, he couldn’t help but think emotion had blinded her to the realities of their situation. What they needed was not four-fifths of the universe’s greatest weapon charging Zarkon in his strength. They needed allies. They needed time.

They needed a black paladin who could rival Zarkon.

The paladins were still squabbling, all of them arguing essentially the same point. Frustration made their voices sharp, and in lieu of a viable target, they’d begun to turn on each other. Their bond had been shattered when Zarkon murdered Lealle, and it had never quite healed.

Coran remained silent, still trying to think of some ploy they hadn’t already considered and dismissed. But the plain truth was they had nothing. No allies. No weapons. No time. Zarkon had seized the upper hand in this war, and he would not soon relinquish it. Alfor let the bickering continue a short time, then stood. At once, the room fell silent.

“This is doing us no good,” Alfor said. “Zarkon’s eyes are elsewhere, for the time being. Consider the situation, and if any of you think of a viable plan, you know where to find me. Until then, rest, and remain alert. Zarkon could attack at any time.”

He left, and in his wake conversation stalled. One by one the others trickled away, first Sa, muttering sullenly to himself, then Rukka, nearly in tears. Meri shot a tired, mournful look at Coran on her way out, but Coran’s attention rested on Keturah.

“You’re planning something.”

She gave a start and turned toward him, her expression guarded. “I am not.”

Coran smiled. “You’re red through and through, Paladin Fire. Always looking for a fight, always a little too willing to risk your own life. The fact that you’ve learned how to scheme only makes it worse.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned away, and Coran reached out to stop her.

“Don’t,” he said. “Please? We’ve lost so much already. We can’t lose you, too.”

Keturah stopped a few paces from the door, staring at Coran’s hand on her arm, her face unreadable. “Lealle was… a friend. A good friend.” She looked up, and a bit of the strain showed in her furrowed brow. “I refuse to let her killer get away with what he’s done.”

“He won’t,” Coran assured her. “We _will_ find a way to stop him. But you rushing in alone isn’t it.”

A ghost of a smile crossed her face, gone as quickly as it had come. “No,” she said. “It would have to be all of us. I’ll just have to find some way to… convince Alfor that the fight is worth continuing.”

Coran didn’t like the sound of that, but Keturah pulled away then, disappearing into the silent castle before Coran could demand to know what it was she was planning.


	4. Traitor

“There is no longer any denying it. Zarkon has betrayed us.” Alfor’s tone was colder than ice, his posture stiff and formal as the conference erupted into chaos.

“ _What?_ ” Lealle hissed.

Rukka pounded a fist on the table. “What do you mean? Is this about my homeworld? I told you--”

“What happened?” Allura demanded. “Has he finally responded to your transmissions?”

Alfor raised a hand for silence, and the paladins slowly settled back into their seats. Unease rippled around the table, enough for a much larger gathering than the seven men and women gathered here. Coran had known this would be bad, but even he'd expected the paladins to retain some sense of control until Alfor had finished. Then again, this had been building for some time--the suspicion, the hurt. They'd all been thinking the same things, but this was the first time anyone had come out and said it.

_Zarkon has betrayed us._

Coran had been with Alfor when the news broke, nearly an hour ago now, but the shock of it still hadn’t worn off. They'd known for months, but they hadn't wanted to believe. Alfor had waited only long enough to confirm what he’d heard, then gathered Allura and the four remaining paladins into the conference room.

 _They deserve to know first,_ Alfor had said.

Coran agreed, but even so it was hard to sit here as Alfor told them all what had happened and shock gave way to horror, to rage.

“You all know the Galra fleet has been invading other worlds these last months,” Alfor said. How he managed to keep his face impassive, Coran would never know. Twenty minutes ago he’d been pale and trembling, rage alternating with a hurt so deep it left him speechless. “I have not heard from Zarkon since I sent him to intercede—that has not changed. But this morning, the fleet has taken their war to a new extreme.”

Alfor pressed a button set into the edge of the table, and a hologram appeared. Asteroids drifted across empty space, too closely spaced to be an ordinary asteroid belt. The paladins frowned, trying to make sense of the image.

“This is all that remains of Ielta.”

Sa drew sharp breath, his ears quivering. “In the Domenata Cluster? But--”

“I know.” Controlled though Alfor’s voice was, a trace of anger slipped through. The Domenata Cluster was a wealthy region of space, filled with many inhabited worlds and a great deal of interstellar traffic. Ielta had been the seat of the local alliance, and home to three billion people of more than a dozen races. It was known throughout the universe as a center of art and commerce.

And now it was gone.

Voices picked up again around the table. Lealle whispering her horror; Sa muttering about the sort of weapon it would take to reduce a planet to rubble; Rukka defending Zarkon and her people to the last, insisting in a small voice that this had been the work of a small faction, that surely most Galra still opposed the new regime. Keturah and Allura alone remained silent, both of them watching Alfor.

“There’s more,” Allura said at length, cutting through the chatter. “Isn’t there?”

Alfor closed his eyes, looking suddenly much older than it was. “I have checked with every source I have in the area, and they all say the same: the Black Lion led the attack against Ielta.”

“No.” The word seemed torn from Lealle’s mouth, more gasp than protest.

Rukka clapped her hands to her mouth. “He… _what_?”

“I don’t know when Zarkon’s loyalties changed,” Alfor said. “Though I suspect he has been manipulating me for a great while. Likely since the very start of our troubles with the Galra.”

Rukka’s ears wilted. “ _Zarkon_ raised the army? He’s the one responsible for all of this? That... that can't be true.”

Stony silence greeted her words. They'd all buried their suspicions in the weeks since Zarkon cut contact with them, steadfast in their denial despite the mounting evidence. They'd buried their heads from the truth as they met the Galra at every turn, doing their best to slow the spread of what some had begun to call the Galra Empire. The enemy was stronger than could be attributed to the fleet reported by Alfor's spies. The Galra knew too well how the Voltron Lions fought and seemed prepared at every turn to counter them.

Zarkon's presence at Ielta would not have been a surprise except that everyone had wanted so desperately to believe the best of him.

Lealle was the first to move, shoving her chair back from the table and rising to her full height. “ _No_.”

Alfor’s face darkened. “I know it’s hard to believe, Lealle, but--”

“No! This is Zarkon we’re talking about. Our _friend_! There must be some mistake.”

With a steadying breath, Alfor dismissed the hologram over the table. “I’ve seen the recordings. Zarkon _was_ there. And he wasn’t trying to stop the attack.”

“Then we must stop him.” This came from Keturah, the first words she’d spoken since Alfor called them all together. Every eye turned her way, but she didn’t flinch at the sudden attention. “If he is attacking peaceful worlds, then we must fight.”

“We don’t know that’s what he’s doing,” Lealle said. Pleaded.

Sa was already shaking his head. “We do, though. We’ve known it for a long time.”

“Zarkon has forsaken his oaths,” Allura whispered. Her shock was wearing off now, too, and she looked at her father with poise to match his own. “He will not go down easily.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rukka said. She wore her grief like a pall but spoke with conviction. “There’s one of him and four of us.”

Alfor turned the holoprojector back on, this time to a different image. He'd already drawn up several plans for an attack against Zarkon and his army, vicious and decisive plans meant to make up for his indecision over the last weeks. As the king, as the one who trained and guided the paladins, Alfor considered himself responsible for their conduct—and all Coran’s arguments could not persuade him that this was not his fault.

The paladins listened grimly to Alfor’s plans, nodding along. Keturah offered insight, Sa mused over improvements he could make to their weapons. One by one they ceased to think of Zarkon as the black paladin and began to see him as just another enemy to be defeated for the sake of the universe.

All except for Lealle.

“Would you all listen to yourselves?” she demanded, her voice as cold and brittle as ice. The others had gathered around Alfor’s holodisplay, but Lealle remained in her seat, unmoving. “A few reports from across the universe and you’re all ready to string a noose around Zarkon’s neck! Are we defenders, or are we tyrants?”

Sa fidgeted in his seat. “That’s not what this is, Lealle--”

“That’s _exactly_ what this is! You’re blinded by your fear! We don’t know that Zarkon is allied with that fleet. Even if he is, we don’t know _why_. Someone else might have attacked Ielta--Zarkon might have gone there to stop that other enemy! It could be another Destroyer--you _know_ Zarkon has always been single-minded when it comes to anything like the Vkullor. And yet here you all are, ready to charge in, lions roaring. No questions asked, no chance for mercy. How is that _any_ different from the very forces we’ve fought against since we were each chosen by our lions?”

“The difference,” Keturah said, “is that Zarkon has a Voltron Lion at his disposal. If we don’t stop him, who will?”

Lealle’s face darkened. “We owe him a chance, at least. Or have these years meant nothing to any of you? Zarkon isn’t some rampaging warlord. He’s our _friend_. Our _brother_! Why are you so eager to kill him?”

“But that’s exactly what he’s turned himself into, isn't it?” Rukka said. Her low voice thrummed with a scarcely-contained growl. “A warlord? He’s conquered Galra, subjugated her people, _my_ people. He’s killed those who resist, and he’s turned the rest into an army. He is _exactly_ what we exist to fight.”

“But--” Lealle faltered, eyes roving the table. She seemed just now to notice how far against her the tide had turned. Allura sat beside her father, grim and silent. Sa seemed on the verge of tears.

Every other face was a mask of rage—even Alfor’s. Lealle flinched at the sight of it.

Desperate, Lealle turned to Coran for aid. “He’s our _friend_ ,” she said once more, though with less conviction. “We don’t know that everything we’ve heard is true. We might still end this without violence. _Please_ ,” she said, and Coran felt the tug of it behind his breastbone.

But he’d seen the same recordings Alfor had. He knew what Zarkon had done.

“I’m sorry, Lealle,” he said.

For a long moment, there was only silence.

Finally, Lealle straightened, stiff with hurt and anger. “Fine,” she said, all false civility and that certain sort of prickly she got when someone dealt her personal offense. “End him, if you think it’s best. I won’t be a part of this.”

She turned, snatching her arm away as Alfor reached out for her, and stormed from the room.

The others watched her go, shocked and saddened. After a moment, Keturah stood and hurried after her.

Alfor slumped into his seat, suddenly drained. Rukka and Sa watched him for the span of three heartbeats, slack-jawed as if the sight of their king, overwhelmed by Zarkon’s betrayal, had hit them like a physical blow.

Then Allura stepped forward, drawing the paladins’ attention. They gathered at the far end of the table and resumed their talk of Zarkon, and how best to deal with him. Twenty minutes passed. Coran listened with half an ear, his attention only slightly bolstered when Alfor collected himself and joined the conversation. He knew this was necessary, and yet a corner of his heart agreed with Lealle.

Zarkon _was_ their friend. He'd been Coran's student. They'd trained together, shared jokes, played innumerable games of eshet.

His betrayal ached, but Coran could no longer turn a blind eye.

The door hissed open, and Keturah stumbled in, flushed and gasping for air.

“Lealle,” she said, her usual calm shattered by a wave of hysteria so intense it pulled the others to their feet. Keturah, though, only had eyes for Alfor. “She’s gone.”

* * *

Coran found Rukka in the prep room, cleaning the paladins’ armor. She didn’t look up at his arrival, but the motion of her hands slowed, and her ears flattened against her head, as sure a sign of distress as if she’d burst into tears.

Turning to inspect Meri’s armor—already polished to gleaming—Coran gave Rukka a moment to compose herself. Yellow paladins were always strong, but they also had a tendency to take too much on themselves, and Rukka was no exception.

“I don’t suppose you’re here because you’ve come up with a brilliant plan to fix the universe,” Rukka murmured, staring down at Keturah’s armor in her hands.

Coran’s shoulders slumped, and he turned toward her. Rukka had been a paladin for a long time, especially for a race as short-lived as a Galra. Her fur was going gray, and the golden glow in her eyes seemed to dim a little more each day.

Before Zarkon had betrayed them, she’d told Coran and King Alfor that she meant to step down as soon as her lion chose a replacement—but this war changed everything. It was hard enough having one new paladin on the team; two would have been yet another mark against them at a time when Zarkon seemed to have stacked fate itself on his side.

So Rukka had stayed, weary though she was. She’d vowed to see this fight through.

“I’m afraid not,” Coran said, rubbing his hands together. The castle’s climate control system was ever-so-slightly out of whack, had been since their last big battle, but they all had more pressing matters to attend to than figuring out why the castle was a few degrees colder than it should have been. “Actually, I wanted to speak with you.”

Rukka looked up, eyes going wide. “Me? Why?”

There was a note of fear in her voice, a sudden tremble in her hands. He remembered how Zarkon’s betrayal had hit her—her in particular, because their enemy wore the face of her own people. Guilt gathered between her shoulders, tension pulling tighter day by day, pushing Rukka toward chores and errands and a thousand tasks that had the frenzy of overdue penance.

Coran sat beside Rukka on the bench and rested a hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”

Her head snapped up, but her shock lasted only a moment before the tears began to gather. She tried to turn away, an all-but-inaudible rumble of embarrassment escaping her, but Coran grabbed her wrist.

“You don’t need to punish yourself. It was Zarkon who betrayed us, not the Galra. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Rukka shook her head. “I wanted to save my people,” she whispered. “I wanted to stop Zarkon, but I didn’t want to fight my people—Lealle knew that, and that’s why—that’s why she--”

Her voice faltered, and Coran’s throat was too thick with emotion to fill the silence that followed.

His eyes drifted back to Meri’s armor. To Lealle’s armor. Coran had replaced the back panel, where Zarkon’s knife had pierced, but sometimes the shadows still looked like blood.

“Lealle did what she did because she believed it was right,” Coran said softly. “She wanted to save your people. She wanted to save Zarkon. You didn’t ask her to go.” He paused, blinking away tears of his own. “You know if she were here, she would box your ears for thinking that you’d forced her into anything.”

A warbling laugh escaped Rukka, and she wiped at her cheeks, hands leaving greasy streaks of armor polish behind. “She would at that… I miss her, Coran.”

“As do I.”

Rukka stared down at her hands, shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. “She wouldn’t want us to abandon this fight. There are people depending on us. We _have_ to fight, for their sake if not our own.”

Coran hesitated. He wanted to fight; they all did. They didn’t want to walk away, knowing Alfor would die before Coran and Allura returned with a new team of paladins. But was that the selfish choice? The paladins were breaking down, each in their own way. With guilt, with shame, with an anger that threatened to tear them apart from the inside.

What if Alfor was right? What if what they needed—all of them, the paladins as well as the rest of the universe—was for a new team, unburdened by the weight of past mistakes, to arrive? They would need time to train, and that would mean suffering, but if the alternative was four broken, mourning people throwing themselves into the mouth of the beast in a vain effort to feel useful…

Smiling sadly, Coran patted Rukka’s back. “Zarkon must be stopped,” he said. If Rukka noticed that Coran no longer claimed that right for this generation, she didn’t say anything. Coran stood, trying to force cheer into his voice. “Try and get some rest, eh, Paladin Stone? Working yourself to the bone isn’t going to help anyone.”

She nodded an acknowledgment, and Coran left the prep room. He’d offered her what comfort he could, when his own heart was being torn in two. It was a pitiful gesture, but the universe of late was short on optimism. Coran would have to find his own path to acceptance before he could lead anyone else on that miserable journey.


	5. Sister

It didn’t take long to figure out where Lealle had gone or what she intended. The only surprise was that she hadn’t taken her lion, just a small two-man shuttle. It was an act of caution, an unwillingness to risk giving the enemy more power, and it confirmed what they all already knew.

Lealle had gone to meet Zarkon.

She'd deactivated her comms, but Alfor was able to access her nav computer and find her exit point, an uninhabited system in neutral space where Voltron had often trained. The computer detected another wormhole opening to the same sector moments after Lealle’s.

As soon as he had the coordinates, Alfor opened a wormhole and brought the castle through. It couldn’t have been more than a few thousand ticks since Lealle had left, but the system was already quiet, giving no sign that Zarkon had ever been there.

They found Lealle on the only habitable planet in the system, a short walk from her shuttle. She lay face down in the shadow of a red-leafed tree, a guardsman’s knife in her back. The Galran sigil reading _loyalty_ glowed dim violet in the gathering dusk.

* * *

There was little time to mourn. Now that Zarkon had made his loyalties clear, he could only grow bolder in his attacks. But this was Lealle; not even Sa would argue practicality now.

The memorial ceremony was a simple thing, a gathering of Lealle’s family and teammates as Alfor settled her body in the extraction pod. Memory profiles were meant to be built slowly over the course of a lifetime. Paladins customarily spent a single night in the pods each year, usually on the anniversary of bonding their lion, to renew their profile.

Lealle was no exception. But it had been two seasons since her last extraction, and a great deal had happened in that time. The Galra uprising, the birth of the empire, Allura’s first battle in command of the Voltron Guard. Extracting memories from residual Quintessence was a much less precise process than extracting from a living mind, but this was their only way to try to fill in some of the gaps.

Once the process began, the other paladins withdrew, leaving Allura and Alfor to sit vigil through the night. Coran stayed with them--a slight break with tradition, though Alfor would be the first to claim Coran as a member of his family. In any case, Allura and Alfor needed him there, so there he would remain.

None of them spoke as the night wore on. Alfor knelt before the pod, hands on his knees, tears streaming down his face. Allura knelt beside him at first, but her tears were not a silent as her father’s, and when Coran pressed a hand to her back, she wavered in her watch, then turned to sob into his shoulder.

Coran’s gaze locked with Alfor’s, and Coran’s heart ached at the anger and grief he found there. Coran’s own eyes were far from dry, of course, but his grief didn’t matter in this moment. He’d lost a friend, a comrade, a sister, and he would mourn her for many days to come. But Alfor and Allura still had an army to lead. After today, he knew, they would allow themselves no more tears.

When dawn came, and with it the brightening of the room's lights, it was time for final farewells. Alfor was the first to stand, wincing as he stretched knees that had borne his weight for the last eight hours. He hesitated, then pressed his hand to the glass encircling Lealle, as if to caress her cheek one last time.

“You were my everything.” His voice was soft, and charged with emotion. New tears spilled over as he bent low over his hand, continuing in a whisper that didn’t carry to where Coran still sat with Allura.

After a moment, he stepped back, and the mask of King had settled back into place. Seeing his composure, Allura wiped her eyes, and Coran wished she hadn’t inherited quite so much of Alfor’s sense of duty. With a mournful smile for Coran, Allura stood and went to where her mother rested. The smaller cylinder beside the pod sparkled with her memory profile, a nebula only slightly denser now than it had been at the start of their vigil.

“Mother.” Allura’s voice cracked on the word, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “You have done so much for so many people, and I wish I had been there with you at the end. I wish—I wish--” Her composure slipped, and she clutched at the collar of her dress, pure white for mourning. “You should have lived, Mother. So many people still need you. _I_ still need you.”

Her eyes darted to the memory cylinder, and Coran wanted to pull her into his arms again. They had lost soldiers before, of course, but none Allura had known well. Certainly none she had sat vigil for. Everyone always thought the memory profiles soothed away the pain of loss until it was their loved one who died. Then they realized that a hologram with a fraction of the deceased's memories and personality could never replace the real person.

Allura struggled for poise, straightening her back and lifting her chin even as tears continued to fall. “We will honor your legacy. We will continue to bring kindness and mercy to those we encounter—to all those who deserve it.” There was a sharp edge behind those words that Coran didn’t like, but Allura went on, softer than before. “Rest easy, Mother. I will do my best to make you proud.”

Then she stepped back to join her father, giving Coran a chance to speak. He came forward slowly, unable to look away from Lealle’s face. When Coran’s grandfather had died, his body had looked to be merely sleeping, but Coran could not make the same illusion hold now. Lealle had never been quiet or demure, not even in sleep. She was in all things grand and enthusiastic, and her infectious joy filled her like a light.

That light had gone out now, and the face resting behind the glass belonged to a stranger.

Coran stood before the pod, silent and somber. There had been a time, when Alfor and Lealle were young and falling in love, when Coran had believed there would always be a wedge between himself and the future queen. He had hesitated to call it jealousy, even then, but he had resented her presence.

But it had been impossible to hold a grudge against Lealle. Her humor was too like his own, her love freely given. The day she and Alfor had announced their engagement, Lealle had taken Coran out drinking—her favorite past time, if not his. They’d talked with more candor than either had allowed themself before, spilling secrets and fears and jealousies they’d tried too hard to keep inside.

“You hold a piece of him I never can,” Lealle admitted, startling Coran with the pain in her voice. “He was already a king when I came around. Acted like one, anyway. I never knew the prince who crashed transports and tracked in mud and skipped lessons. Little bits of that kid are still in there, I s’ppose, but it.. It’s like...”

She sighed, leaving the statement unfinished, but Coran understood. She was the paladin, the soon-to-be-queen, and she only knew King Alfor. Coran was the childhood friend, slowly growing apart from the man Alfor had become.

That would change in time, of course. Coran became Alfor’s advisor, and Lealle found ways to poke holes in Alfor’s stately mask. But that (slightly tipsy) confession was enough to melt away whatever remained of Coran’s envy, and the two had grown into fast friends. They confided in each other things neither wanted to burden Alfor with, they plotted together to find ways to make him laugh when the burdens of the crown weighed most heavily on his shoulders.

And when Allura grew up to be just as regal as her father, Coran and Lealle occasionally left them to it in favor of braving local swap meets. It was a competition between them, seeing who could return with the best deal or the most interesting find—and if Lealle always won the first (having grown up among traders nearly as cutthroat as those who frequented the swap meets), Coran had an eye for the rare and eclectic.

Standing now before her dead body, Coran realized he’d loved her nearly as much as he loved Alfor and Allura.

Coran had never been an eloquent man, not when the situation demanded solemnity as it did now. So he didn’t try to put his grief into words. All he did was press his hand to the glass and whisper, too soft for the others to hear, “Don’t worry, Lealle. I’ll look after them for you.”

After that, it was time to see her off. Alfor seemed to have aged a hundred years in the night, and he dragged as he lifted his hand toward the controls. His eyes glistened with tears he no longer allowed to fall, and he murmured one final goodbye before he pressed the button.

Lealle and her pod vanished, pulled out the airlock and surrendered to the universe’s cold embrace.

* * *

The other paladins were waiting outside the vigil room when Coran, Alfor, and Allura emerged. Coran had expected no less; Rukka, Sa, and Keturah had all been dear friends. Meri was there, too, and she crossed at once to Allura’s side, concern etching her features, though she didn’t try to comfort the princess yet. She could see, as Coran could, that Allura was holding herself together though stubbornness and pride. Any kindness might shatter her control, and Coran wasn’t certain Allura could bear to be shattered again.

If Allura’s hold on her emotions was glass, Alfor’s was steel. He met each gaze steadily, solemnly. “Lealle rests with the stars,” he said, and the others responded with a hushed, _May her light shine on._ After a brief pause, Alfor continued. “I’m afraid there is no more time for mourning. Zarkon has betrayed us. We must stop him. Meri.”

The young woman jumped, her dark skin ashen. She looked exhausted, her fiery hair limp and mussed, her eyes red from a night spent watching—and perhaps weeping. Many of the paladin hopefuls ended up training more closely with one mentor than the rest, and Meri had trained close indeed with Lealle. Lealle had considered Meri a second daughter, and Coran suspected the affection had been mutual.

Alfor’s expression tightened as he regarded her, but he spoke evenly, a king in full control of his grief. “You worked more closely with the Blue Lion than any other trainee. Lealle held high hopes for you succeeding her as paladin. You may take today to prepare. Tomorrow, we will see if the Blue Lion will accept you.”

Shocked silence washed over the other paladins, and Meri looked near to collapse. It was rare for a paladin to die in the service, but it happened. Always before, the team and the lion had been allowed five days to grieve before the testing began. Five days to remember and to heal before someone stepped into the hole in their hearts.

Meri’s mouth opened in silent protest, then closed. She saw what Alfor did—time was short. With Zarkon’s betrayal, the team was already hurting. Three paladins might stand against the Black Lion, but not with the Galra army at her back.

They needed the Blue Lion, and they needed her soon.

* * *

The next day, Alfor and Coran escorted Meri to the Blue Lion’s hangar. Blue’s sorrow was a tangible presence in the air, a heaviness that greeted them at the door. The lion lay on the ground, head on her paws, eyes dim.

Coran and Alfor stopped some way back, and Coran nodded for Meri to approach.

She did, though hesitantly, one hand stretched out toward the lion. Meri stopped one step shy of touching Blue’s snout, looking up at her.

“I know you miss her, Blue,” Meri whispered. “I do, too, and I’m sorry to come to you like this. But the universe needs you. The other paladins need you. I know I’m not ready for this, I know you’re probably not ready either. But… please. If there’s any chance that I might one day become your paladin, let me fight _now_.”

Meri paused, looking like she wanted to say more, but then she closed her eyes and took that last step, her hand coming to rest against the Blue Lion’s hull.

The acceptance was not so much a roar as a rumble, fitting for the somber atmosphere filling the castle. But Blue’s eyes lit up with a familiar amber glow, and she lowered her head toward Meri, pressing back against the young woman’s hand in acceptance.

Meri gasped, her knees buckling, and Coran barely reached her before she collapsed.

“Sorry,” Meri said quickly, ducking her head. She was crying, her breath coming in shallow gasps tinged with the beginnings of a sob. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting--” She looked up at the Blue Lion, and her face seemed to reflect the sorrow filling the air. A paladin's bond with her lion brought an echo of emotion, and Coran could only imagine what the Blue Lion was feeling now. Meri blinked rapidly, leaning heavily on Blue's paw. “I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Blue. I’m sorry I’m not her.”

* * *

Coran found Meri in the pod room, watching Allura sleep.

“It's been four days,” Meri said without turning. “I guess I’d better start accepting the king’s plan, huh?”

Coran sighed, but he didn’t deny it. They’d all been searching for answers that simply didn’t exist. Zarkon was too powerful. The paladins had suffered too many losses in too short a time. The last time they’d won any significant victory was the day the Blue Lion had chosen Meri, when the four paladins had gone to confront Zarkon.

They’d managed to reclaim the Black Lion, and even that was only because she herself had fought against Zarkon’s control. He seemed surprised by her betrayal, and he’d been forced to flee before the paladins could take him, too.

Allura had nearly gone after Zarkon herself, and Coran couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d stopped her, of course; he wasn’t going to let Zarkon kill Allura as well as Lealle. But he understood that anger.

After that, Zarkon had shown no mercy, steadily crushing the Voltron Guard and allied worlds throughout the universe. With each victory the Galra claimed, Voltron’s odds of turning the tide dwindled. They had no allies left who would fight, no fleet to support the lions, no Voltron to face the enemy’s overwhelming strength.

The universe needed a team of paladins that was fresh and unbroken. Alfor’s plan was their only real hope. Coran had nearly resigned himself to that fact, but he knew the paladins were still searching for an answer.

Coran stood silently beside Meri, wishing he could offer her words of advice, or even of comfort, but there was nothing to be said. Any path she chose would likely end with her dead before Allura woke from stasis, as it ended with Alfor dead, and Keturah, and Rukka, and Sa.

“I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” Meri whispered.

“Me either.”

Before either of them could say anything more, the comms crackled to life.

“Meri! Get to your lion! Coran, I need you on the bridge.” Alfor’s voice was sharp, anger simmering just below the surface.

Coran was already moving, Meri two steps ahead of him. “What is it?” she demanded. “What happened?”

“It’s Keturah,” Alfor growled. “She’s launched an attack against Zarkon.”


	6. Family

The castle shook with the force of another attack.

Allura whimpered and burrowed deeper into Coran’s chest. A few days ago, he’d marveled at how much she’d grown, from an infant no longer than his forearm to a curly-haired tornado who came nearly to his waist.

Now, though, she seemed impossibly small. Coran curled around her, shielding her as much as she could from the sounds of battle. The viewscreens in this room were all dark now, shut off too late to spare Allura the horror of the battle. She’d always liked to watch the lions fly, and when Alfor had sent her away from the bridge, she’d begged Coran to take her here, to the observation room above the Blue Lion’s hangar, to watch.

Coran should have known better. Vkullor were vicious beasts, destroyers of worlds. Long and serpentine, with spines that glowed an eerie green, the vkullor attacking the planet Daibazaal could have swallowed the Castle of Lions in a single bite.

Even with Voltron out there to face it, the battle was far from a sure thing. The Voltron Guard was taking heavy losses, and the paladins were only a little better off.

But it was the sight of the vkullor destroying a large chunk of the planet below that had wiped the smile off Allura’s face. She’d gasped, and Coran—stunned himself at the devastation visible through the viewscreen—had barely been able to catch her as she fell.

They sat now in semi-darkness, the room around them shaking with each blow, Coran whispering half-remembered bedtime stories into Allura’s hair. Some far-distant corner of his mind acknowledged that Alfor could probably use his help on the bridge, manning the shields and the lasers, fielding damage reports and seeing to repairs.

Before Allura was born, even for a decade or so after she was born, Coran would have been there on the bridge. Nothing short of death itself could have pulled Coran from Alfor’s side.

Now, though, he had a more important job.

“Are they gonna be okay?” Allura whispered, interrupting Coran's meandering tale of a princess and her pet lion.

Coran kissed the top of her head, smiling into her hair. “Of course they are, Allura. They’re paladins of Voltron. There’s nothing in the universe that can defeat them.”

* * *

“Keturah!” Alfor boomed as soon as Sa managed a workaround to bypass the Red Lion’s disabled comms. “What is this? What are you doing?”

“What the rest of you should have done days ago,” she said, her level voice belied by the fury smoldering in her violet eyes. “What you _would_ have done if you weren’t all such damned cowards.”

Rukka flinched, Sa’s breath hissed through his teeth, and Alfor—Alfor stiffened, his rigid frame becoming adamantine. Coran felt the anger coming off him in waves, so strong it turned his Quintessence into a palpable thing.

“You cannot hope to defeat an entire army on your own,” Alfor said.

Keturah snorted. “Of course not. But we could together. _You_ can pilot the Black Lion, Alfor. You have that ability. Fly with us, help us form Voltron instead of making yourself a martyr out of fear and self-pity.”

“Keturah,” Meri said, but she seemed not to know where to go from there.

“Stay there if you must.” Keturah’s voice was ice. “Stay there and know that my death is on your heads.”

Keturah cut the connection.

A numb silence fell over the bridge, four pairs of eyes fixed on Alfor, collective breath held as they waited for his response. Meri looked hopeful, Rukka concerned, Sa merely tired. Coran felt only a hollow ache at what this team had become. It had been years— _decades—_ since Keturah had last defied a direct order. She respected Alfor too much for that.

She’d respected Zarkon, too. He’d listened to her, redirected her zeal toward more controlled ends. He’d shaped her, and she’d stood at his side, and now that Zarkon had broken that bond, was it any wonder Keturah no longer trusted anyone but herself?

“She’s forced our hand,” Sa said into the silence. His antennae twitched, his feather-like yellow hair bristling in irritation. “If we do nothing, we don’t just lose Keturah—we give Zarkon the Red Lion.”

Alfor’s hands tightened on his controls. His head was bowed, but he was trembling with scarcely-contained rage. “Everyone get to your lions. You’re going to bring Keturah back to the castle before she gets herself captured. I don’t care if you have to disable the Red Lion to do so.”

The paladins, already dispersing toward their elevators, faltered. Coran gaped openly at Alfor. Asking the paladins to attack one of their own was unthinkable--especially so soon after Zarkon's betrayal. Meri and Rukka exchanged disturbed looks, but no one argued. No one dared.

Coran waited until the paladins were gone, then stepped up beside Alfor. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Alfor closed his eyes, a war playing out across his face. “Zarkon _cannot_ be allowed to hold one of the Voltron Lions.”

“Of course not,” Coran said quickly. “But… perhaps Keturah is right. If you were to pilot the Black Lion--”

“Zarkon would take her from me. He has not relinquished the bond, even if the lion has. No.” Alfor shook his head, straightened, and opened a wormhole to Keturah’s location. “We will do what we should have done five days ago. The lions will go into hiding. You will go with Allura and the Black Lion, and await the arrival of the new paladins.”

Coran didn’t have it in him to argue any longer.

The battle was already underway when they arrived, Zarkon’s fleet hounding the Red Lion. Keturah reopened her comms channel as the other paladins joined her, a strained smile on her face. She was pale, the _glaes_ on her cheeks unusually vivid in contrast.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” she asked, laughing thinly. A squadron of enemy fighters opened fire, and she turned the Red Lion away. The lion’s movement seemed sluggish, and Coran hurried to his station to enhance the image projected on the viewscreen.

Coran’s heart fell. There was a long, dark scar down the Red Lion’s flank. Her tail streamed out behind her, limp, its laser dark. She shuddered as Keturah fought through the Galra fleet toward the other paladins.

Alfor grunted in displeasure. “We didn’t come here to fight, Keturah. Return to the castle at once.”

Keturah’s face darkened. “Zarkon killed Lealle, Alfor. He’s slaughtered _millions—_ our friends among them. You can’t ask me to sit back and let him ravage the rest of the universe!”

Coran expected an argument, if not Alfor’s usual calm reason.

Instead, Alfor merely sighed. “Paladins, bring her in.”

“What?” Keturah hissed. The Red Lion slowed, shock loosening Keturah’s grip on the controls. The other three lions encircled her, their weapons trained on her instead of on the true enemy. Keturah's face fell. “So that’s how it’s going to be? Anyone who disagrees with you gets annihilated, even your own paladins? Quiznak, Alfor! Lealle was right—you’re as bad as Zarkon!”

Anger broke like a storm front on Alfor’s face. But before he could thunder, Zarkon’s command ship opened fire.

Keturah, turned toward the other lions, her _friends_ , in anticipation of an attack, never saw the laser that struck the base of the Red Lion’s skull.

Keturah screamed, high and breathless, an instant of surprise and fear, and then the feed from her cockpit cut out.

The silence that followed cut Coran to the core.

“Keturah?” Meri whispered. Then again, louder. “Keturah?”

The Blue Lion surged forward. Rukka, wide-eyed and silent, had already started to charge the Galra ships closing in around the Red Lion’s limp form. But more ships were flooding in, choking the air until the other paladins could find no way through.

Zarkon’s command ship glided toward the dogfight, unfazed by the lasers that occasionally struck its shield. A hatch in the bow opened, pouring white light into dead space, and a tractor beam began to pull the Red Lion in.

“No!” Meri screamed. “ _Keturah!_ ”

“Fall back.”

Alfor’s voice was incongruously calm, and Coran whipped around to face him, a protest springing to his lips.

It died at the mournful resignation in Alfor’s eyes. “Fall back,” he said again, even more forcefully. “We cannot save her now.”

“But--!” Meri faltered as Alfor fixed her with a glare.

“Zarkon is too powerful. If you stay, you will only hand him more power. You _cannot_ help Keturah.”

Coran’s heart lodged in his throat as the silence dragged on. The paladins struggled toward the Red Lion for a few seconds more, firing into an endless sea of Galra fighters. They were hoping for a miracle, Coran knew. He was, too.

But no miracle came.

* * *

After losing Keturah, Alfor would hear no more arguments. There would be no feint, no distraction to convince Zarkon that Voltron had been destroyed. It was all they could do to slip silently into the far reaches of the universe and await the rise of a new generation of paladins. Sa had joined Coran in resigned silence, but Rukka and Meri still fought for a rescue mission.

“Even if Keturah were still alive,” said Alfor in a tone that left no doubt what he thought of the possibility, “we are too weak for a rescue mission to succeed. I won’t lose any more of you, and I _will not_ give Zarkon any more lions.”

They took a quiet moment to say goodbye to Keturah as they downloaded her memory profile into an empty cylinder in the computer core. It felt too abrupt, but there was no body to sit vigil with, and Alfor was impatient to get the Lions to safety.

One by one, the paladins entered the extractor for one final upload, an hour each to leave what advice they could for their eventual successors. Sa went first and emerged stone-faced, murmuring a farewell to the rest of them before he climbed into the Green Lion and vanished through the wormhole Alfor opened for him.

Next was Rukka, hunched and mournful. She seemed diminished, wasted away by the loss of Keturah. She hugged them all before she left, her fur damp with tears.

When it was Meri’s turn, she hesitated. She’d only been a paladin for a few weeks, and she’d taken up the mantle in the midst of crisis. She had no profile to build on, and it would have taken far longer than an hour to create anything worthwhile.

When Alfor turned to her, his face looked like that of a much older man. “I’m so sorry, Meri. I have asked so much of you, and you have given generously. I wish I could offer you a happier end than this.”

Meri blinked, her eyes misting. “You did all you could,” she said. “I know there’s no point storing my memories, but… could I record a message for Allura? I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Alfor nodded, and they gave Meri a few minutes of privacy on the bridge. That left Coran alone in the corridor with Alfor, and his throat closed as he studied Alfor’s face, trying to memorize every line of it.

“So this is it.”

Alfor turned to Coran, smiling sadly. “I’m afraid so, old friend.” Alfor paused, his gaze turning distant. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Asking you to go.”

Coran combed his fingers though his hair. “You were right to. We couldn’t very well leave Allura all alone with our mess.”

“But I could have asked someone else. Meri, perhaps.” Alfor shook his head. “We could have hidden the Blue Lion and returned in a shuttle to meet our end together.” He looked down at Coran, strangely hesitant. “We could still, if you’re serious about not wanting to go.”

With a jolt, Coran realized Alfor wasn’t offering for Coran’s sake, but for his own. Faced with his own impending death, Alfor didn’t want to be alone.

Coran had never seen Alfor like this, and it stunned him now. Stunned him so much he almost agreed without thinking.

Then he stopped, snapping his mouth shut. Faced with a choice between Alfor and Allura, he realized it wasn't such a difficult decision after all. “I’m sorry, Alfor,” Coran said. “I can’t leave her.”

Alfor closed his eyes, but he was smiling as he nodded. “We made the right choice, Lealle and I. You might just be a better father than I was.”

Tears stung Coran’s eyes, and he hurried forward to embrace Alfor. One final hug before they parted ways for the last time. He didn’t want to say goodbye.

The emergency alert sounded before Coran could bring himself to pull away. Alfor and Coran stared at each other for one instant, then turned and burst onto the bridge to find Meri hunched over the controls, her face streaked with tears. She blanched, then looked up at them.

“It’s Altea,” she said. “Zarkon’s attacking Altea.”

The ground seemed to have dropped out from underneath Coran, and he caught himself on the edge of the blue paladin’s station. “We have to go back.”

“ _I_ will go,” Alfor said. “You two must go into hiding.”

“Like _quiznak_ I will,” Meri snapped. “I can get you to Altea faster than any shuttle—you’d just be blown up as soon as you get there, anyway.”

Alfor frowned. “The Blue Lion--”

“Can use a wormhole from Altea just as well as she can jump from here,” Meri said. They stared at each other for a moment, a silent contest of wills.

Then Alfor nodded. “Go get your lion ready to launch. I’ll open the wormhole and meet you there.” She left, and Alfor turned to Coran. “I’ll charge a wormhole for you, as well. It will take you to a peaceful planet far from Zarkon’s fleet. The Lions have already been programed to come there once they have chosen a new paladin. You’ll have to--”

Zarkon’s face appeared on the viewscreen, dimly lit and twisted into a cruel smile that seemed an ill fit for the boy Coran had watched grow into a paladin of Voltron. Alfor stiffened.

“Alfor,” said Zarkon, his deep voice reverberating around the bridge. “How nice to see you again.”

Alfor drew himself up to his full height and glared at Zarkon. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but we both know that’s a lie. What are you doing, Zarkon? Why are you attacking Altea?”

“Why?” Zarkon’s amber eyes flashed. “You know why.”

Coran was shaking—with anger, with the sting of Zarkon’s betrayal, with frustration at his own powerlessness. “Oh, yes. We know perfectly well. You’re a power-hungry monster with no sense of loyalty.”

Zarkon’s smile grew wider. “Do be quiet, Coran. You never knew what you were talking about.”

Coran spluttered, but Alfor held up a hand to silence him. “Is this about Philitrakka?”

“Philitrakka, Cybile, Hovent... _Trenchaar_.” Zarkon’s voice had gone low, and he growled the last word with a venom that shocked Coran. He recognized the list as planets and systems, though he couldn’t for the life of him see how they were connected. Philitrakka was a trade world, Cybile an uninhabited moon. There had been a battle in the Hovent sector near the start of the Galra war, but none of the planets in the system were particularly noteworthy. He’d never heard of Trenchaar.

Alfor, evidently, had. He blanched, gripping his controls with a white-knuckle grip as he stared Zarkon down. “You would slaughter billions because of that? You would destroy Altea for your own pride?”

Zarkon chuckled, low and dark. “In a heartbeat.” He smiled a dagger-sharp smile. “I will give your planet one solar cycle. Return what you have stolen, or accept the consequences.”

The transmission ended, and after a moment of utter stillness, Alfor called up the castle’s systems with shaking hands.

Coran took a single step toward him. “Return what we’ve stolen? Does he mean the Black Lion?”

Alfor didn’t answer; he had a wild look in his eyes as he flicked through menus. The display changed too quickly for Coran to see what Alfor was doing, and his hands never slowed. An alert popped up, flashing an angry red, and Coran had just an instant to read the words— _Delete memory profile?_

A vice closed around Coran’s heart as Alfor slammed his palm against the confirmation button.

“What… what did you just do?” Coran asked.

Alfor turned, his eyes hollow. “I’m so sorry, Coran,” Alfor said. “But I’ve made too many mistakes. I don’t… Allura will be looking for advice when you both awaken. I don’t want her turning to me.”

The words left a foul taste in the air. King Alfor had been a pillar of strength in the castle for more than a century, a calm guiding voice keeping the paladins and the Voltron Guard on track. To see him now like this—broken, _afraid—_ shook Coran as much as anything that had happened this last week. He was reminded suddenly that Alfor was just a man.

“But… _why_? I don’t understand. Alfor--”

Their eyes locked, and Alfor offered him a small smile. “I must go. We may be able to evacuate some of our people before Zarkon attacks.”

Coran wanted to tell Alfor to be safe, wanted to wish him luck. Both were empty niceties, and Coran couldn’t force them past his teeth. So he just closed the distance between them and pulled Alfor into a hug. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“It is. Take care of Allura.”

Coran closed his eyes. “Like she was my own daughter.”


	7. Home

Arus was quiet.

Coran supposed that was the point—Alfor had picked the lions’ hiding spots personally, so of course he would have chosen quiet, out-of-the-way planets. Places Zarkon wouldn’t think to search, places where a giant robot could remain undisturbed by merchants, explorers, and soldiers.

Still, it was unsettling. Emerging from a wormhole to utter silence on his scanners, not a ship or long-range beacon for lightyears around. Landing on the edge of a valley on a wholly unsettled planet, where Coran could see no sign of even primitive civilization—no buildings, no cultivated fields, no artwork or large gatherings.

Once he had the castle settled in on a small rise of land, Coran engaged the shield and powered down all the non-essential systems. The cryo-replenishers and the shield would remain active, of course, the AI would remain in a ready state—inactive, but waiting to direct the new paladins to the pod room when they arrived.

Everything else he shut off, including the lights and the heating. That was the strangest part of all, walking down dark, silent corridors, all alone in the Castle of Lions. His ears tried to make voices from the echoes of his own footsteps, laughter and shouts and conversation of dead friends. These walls had not been empty since the castle was first built.

It felt like walking in a dream.

In the pod room, Coran checked Allura’s condition—still normal, still frozen—then prepped a pod for himself. He stared down at the control panel feeling an odd sense of detachment. He’d placed no end date on his stint in stasis, as Alfor had put no end date on Allura’s.

He considered it for a moment—capping it at a hundred years, say. That way if the next paladins took longer to arrive than Coran anticipated, he would be able to…

To what? The castle could maintain itself almost indefinitely, the pods would ensure Allura and Coran stayed healthy during their time in stasis, and even if he did wake up early, he wouldn’t be able to contact the rest of the universe to see what had become of Zarkon’s empire.

Better, he decided, to wait until it was time to act.

Stepping into the pod with the knowledge that he had no control over when—or _if—_ he woke up was the hardest thing Coran had ever done. Harder than sitting vigil with Lealle, harder than saying goodbye to Alfor.

The pod sealed shut, bathing Coran in a soft blue glow, and as the computer began the stasis procedure, Coran reflected that it might be nice to let go for a while.

* * *

Coran woke to a castle nearly as quiet as he’d left it—and ten thousand years colder.

Allura was there, of course, confused and frightened but somehow still the calm, collected leader she’d trained to become. Pride filled Coran’s chest until it ached, beat out only by guilt for the pain she couldn’t allow herself to show.

“Impossible,” she whispered, leaning heavy on the console while Coran was still sizing up the “humans” who had roused them from stasis. He turned, and she looked back at him with a glazed expression, her poised mask unraveling at the edges. “We’ve been asleep for ten thousand years!”

Coran didn’t think he’d ever forget that look in Allura’s eyes, like her very self had been ripped out of her and left in pieces on the floor. Maybe it had—and if so, Coran himself had had a hand in it. By going along with Alfor’s plan, by letting Alfor leave Allura in cryostasis as the paladins made their final stand, Coran had hurt Allura. He wondered if those wounds could ever fully heal.

Dizzy and confused in a way that had nothing to do with ten millennia of sleep, Coran stumbled over to where Allura stood, still digging through the records. They said nothing as eons of history unfolded before them, rapid-fire. Altea destroyed. Refugees hunted down and slaughtered. Worlds destroyed before Zarkon’s arrogance.

There was no time to grieve.

The Blue Lion had already—finally—chosen her new paladin, a human boy named Lance. A _child_. Coran tried to tell himself it was just the species difference, making the new paladins look younger than they were. But he knew—he could see it in their eyes. The universe’s only hope, and three of them were children. The only adult among them was Matt Holt. Scared, broken, uncertain Matt Holt.

They weren’t soldiers, but they found themselves on the front lines of a war Coran had failed to stop ten thousand years ago. (Not _just_ Coran, of course, but only he and Allura were still alive, and Allura never would have given up that fight if Alfor and Coran hadn’t stolen the choice from her.)

They were short on choices and shorter on time, and Allura hardly hesitated before sending the four young humans out in search of the Yellow and Green Lions.

Once they were alone, Coran turned to Allura, his heart too heavy for tears. “I’m so sorry, Princess.”

She stood tall and stiff as a staff, her hands on the controls she’d never touched except in training. She was maintaining two wormholes for the paladins, and Coran wasn’t certain how long she’d be able to hold it.

“The castle still can’t locate the Red Lion,” Allura said, utterly ignoring his apology. Possibly she hadn’t heard. Possibly she thought it was pity, rather than guilt, that made Coran speak. Allura, like both her parents, had always hated being pitied. She didn’t have her mother’s skill for deflection, so she took her father’s approach and simply ignored it until it went away.

Well, there would be time later to tell her all that had happened. Sometime when she wasn’t racing to piece Voltron back together. Sometime when a Galra warship wasn’t inching ever closer. For now, they both had to focus on what was relevant.

Coran stepped up beside Allura, staring at the holomap splayed out around them, tracking the paladins’ progress. He thought of Keturah, and stared at the marker tracking the shuttle Matt Holt and his sibling had taken. Allura had pegged Matt as the likeliest pilot for the Red Lion. Coran didn’t think she was wrong, precisely, but he couldn’t help seeing all the ways in which Matt was not Keturah—as he saw the ways all four humans were not their predecessors. It wasn’t fair, he knew, but his friends’ farewells still rang in his ears.

He wasn’t certain he was ready for them to be replaced.

“It’s strange...” Allura shook her head. “The Yellow and Green Lions are at the coordinates my father recorded, but the computer isn’t detecting anything where the Red Lion is supposed to be—not even any Galra activity.”

“That’s because the Red Lion never made it into hiding,” Coran said, and grimaced when Allura turned a wide-eyed stare on him. _Later, later, later,_ pounded in his head. _No time for the whole story now._ “There was one last battle after your father put you in stasis. Keturah was killed, and her lion taken by Zarkon.”

“No.” The word was hardly a whisper, and Allura looked back to the other lions’ beacons in horror. Coran put a hand on her back, ready to beat back his own grief to comfort her, but she straightened, iron control falling back into place. “Zarkon must be masking the Red Lion’s location. Computer, boost the scan strength.”

Coran had only a split second to prepare himself before a hologram flickered into being before them. Tall, brown-skinned, his white hair and beard more neatly trimmed than Coran had seen since Lealle’s death, Alfor looked like his old self. No, he looked like a stranger, his eyes clear of guilt, his face free of worry. Coran had seen a different side of Alfor at the end, a frightened, shattered version. After that, the computer’s idealized representation seemed a lie.

Allura relaxed fractionally at the controls, a sad smile playing across her face. “Father,” she said.

The hologram stared back at her, uncomprehending. The loss hit Coran anew, colliding with his ribs like a charging beast and nearly knocking him flat.

Allura seemed not to have noticed anything wrong. “It seems your plan worked, after a fashion.” There was a hint of anger in her voice, a bitter taste left over from Alfor’s hasty decision to put Allura in stasis without any explanation for what he had done. Mostly, though, she sounded like a daughter happy to see her father after a long, trying day.

“Allura...” Coran began.

Alfor’s hologram cocked its head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the new paladins have arrived—Coran told me that’s what you wanted. A new team of paladins to challenge Zarkon?” She snorted. “Well, they’re here. But it’s been ten _thousand_ years. I can’t imagine you expected it to take so long.”

The hologram opened its mouth, then faltered. The image flickered and fell utterly still, eyes unfocused, staring beyond Allura and Coran as if trying to look into the past.

Allura’s steely gaze wavered. “Father?”

The hologram did not respond.

“Allura,” Coran said, holding her now by both shoulders. “Allura, I’m so sorry--”

She shook her shoulders, throwing off his hands, and with a thought opened a new display before her. _AI Status._ Her eyes flicked side-to-side, taking in the computer’s self-diagnostic as it appeared. Alfor had replaced his mother as the face of the castle’s main AI shortly after Coran had entered stasis—the work of a background process that registered the king dead after two years without contact.

Near the bottom of the list, the computer displayed an error message: _Memory profile not found._

Allura began to tremble. “What do you mean _not found_?” she demanded. Her gaze shifted from her screen to her father’s hologram. “What happened to my father’s memories?”

“He deleted them,” Coran said when the hologram once more failed to answer. Allura gasped and swayed, and Coran stepped up behind her, pressing his hands down atop hers on the control pedestals. If she let go, the wormholes would close, stranding the new paladins and their lions halfway across the universe, so he held onto her and let her lean against him. “I’m sorry, Allura. I couldn’t stop him.”

Allura found her footing and stood firm, her grip on the controls tightening. Once he was sure her hold was secure, Coran released her hands and wrapped her in an embrace, his heart breaking as she stubbornly refused to cry. Her breath was ragged, her frame shaking in his arms, but she firmed her chin and glared her fury at the hologram that was not her father.

“Computer,” Coran said softly. “Disable hologram interface.”

Alfor’s hologram vanished, leaving Coran and Allura alone on the bridge. She was still trembling—Coran nearly was as well, but he buried his grief along with his tears. He’d had his week to accept Alfor’s death. He’d had his time to mourn. He’d been able to say goodbye, which was more than Allura had been given.

So he would be strong for her. Let Allura cry, if she ever would. Let her rage, once she found out what hand Coran had had in all this. He deserved no less than her unfettered fury.

He’d made this mess himself, and now it was his to clean up. If he lived to see a universe free of Zarkon’s control, then he would allow himself to grieve what had been lost—but not before then. There was too much to be done in the mean time.

When Allura’s breathing slowed, Coran stepped back. Their eyes met, and Coran saw his own resolve reflected back at him. They were last of their kind, the only ones who knew what Voltron had been and what it could do.

It wasn't long before Matt and Pidge Holt returned with the Green Lion. Allura’s fatigue had begun to show, so Coran quietly excused himself to the kitchens to fetch a pitcher of nunvill. He walked familiar corridors that had changed almost imperceptibly while he slept, leaving a stranger dressed in familiar clothes.

This place had been his home for decades. He could hardly walk ten paces without stumbling into a memory—Allura, painting a battle scene on the walls when she should have been with a tutor; Zarkon, young and fresh and eager, telling Coran about his homeworld as they walked to the kitchens for an afternoon snack; Lealle and Alfor, catching a quiet moment together in a side passage between training and meetings and formal functions, while Coran stood around the corner pretending not to notice.

Alfor’s AI was not the only ghost in the Castle of Lions. The entire structure seemed a hologram with a corrupted memory profile, the images sticking and skipping in Coran’s mind, impossibly vivid and yet gone in a blink.

He wondered why the lions had chosen such young, untested pilots. He wondered how this new team could do what the paladins of old had been unable to accomplish.

He wondered whether Alfor had been wrong to send the lions away. There had seemed no way to win, and yet…

Coran stopped by the hangar before heading to the kitchens, pausing in the doorway to watch Pidge dart around the Green Lion. They were incredibly young, even by human standards--as far as Coran understood human standards--but they were bright and enthusiastic. Their brother Matt stood nearby, arms crossed, smiling faintly. They were no replacements for Sa and Keturah, but they were extraordinary in their own right. Young, frightened, and--in Matt's case--already scarred by a war they had never asked for. And yet they hadn't argued when Allura told them what it was they'd been chosen for.

As he watched, Coran felt the castle's ghosts begin to recede. There was no changing what had already been done, but there was still the future to shape. Coran was here, now, with this new team. They would need training and guidance, and though the task was daunting Coran would do whatever he could.

He would not watch his team die again.


End file.
